“Apple has replaced its iPad in Business apps website with a new site that is much simpler and more direct,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.

“The new page highlights multiple specific use cases for which a business could use an iPad, then presents specific applications to complete those tasks,” Gurman reports. “The old website was more cluttered and less specific.”

Gurman reports, “The iPhone version of Apple’s business apps website still showcases the older format.”

SharePoint is a Microsoft product, which speaks for itself in terms of the mediocrity of the product and its lack of sound user interface design. Naturally, SharePoint also relegates Mac users to second-class status. For instance, Mac users can only upload one file at a time. PC users can drag and drop files and folders.

The only good thing that I can say about SharePoint is that it is better than PTC Windchill.

The IT/CIO MS minion claims anything than can be done on the web for business, clients and public can all be done in Sharepont! That’s why we are using it and no one will dare challenge it! Sharing will do everything Period! That’s why you can’t bring or use any Macs in the office. We won’t support Macs that can’t function 100% in Sharepoint environment.

Apple could ‘push’ to business or continue letting business find ways to discover Apple. So far, it has been working brilliantly and has been driven through iDevice adoption by consumers (who may actually work for businesses). Who would have thought that it is people who work for businesses?

I scrolled through several of their case studies, and every one of them talked about custom apps. Kind of makes it sound like if you want to use iPads in your business, you better be prepared to become an app developer.

I don’t think you personally need to become an app developer, but most likely the business will have them on staff. Maybe they could retrain the dozens of SharePoint support staff most companies require to make it work.

SharePoint was created for one purpose…to continually make users update their MS Office Suite in order to play in the latest SharePoint update game.

Yes. But for a large company that makes sense. The value is often not in the app itself but in the data it manages. One example would be a database. If we have records of ten thousand customers including what they own and how old the equipment is that information is gold. Suppose that the only way to access that now is to email someone with a request and a day or two later they send back a response (don’t laugh). Now replace that with an iPad accessing the same data from the field. That is gold for a salesperson. The gadgets we sell cost from $50k to $200k. The cost of the app is trivial compared to the value we might get from fast remote access to information.

I think this is an important point. The apps don’t have to be very sophisticated. There is huge value in using a portable device like an iPad to communicate with a database, or with a coworker or with an instrument. A lot of industrial gadgets cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. If you can reduce downtime or improve performance by some sort of remote access that is fantastic.

With tablets today, the average consumer does not really need a full blown pc. A tablet will suffice.

For professionals? The way Microsoft pandered to the home user with Windows 8, and with it’s malware ecosystem than thrives off of it, Microsoft looks to be handing the laptop market to Apple on a silver platter.
Microsoft has to get on the ball if it wants to avoid being the next Blackberry. And it sure looks that way. And it will happen a lot faster than people think if MS doesn’t act quickly. But I honestly think it’s too late, Google is taking aim at them on the mass market consumer side, and Apple on the high end. That only leaves MS the hanger-ons.

Not sure if anyone is going to see this late post, but I find it odd that there is no discussion regarding Apple getting deeper into the business world. As in building enterprise servers to compete with Windows.

The day this effort starts in ernest, is the day when Apple will corner the market in computer mfg.